During this panel talk, Aida Baghernejad, Jasper Willems, and Rewire Reflections participants will enter into a conversation with Laura Snapes on the state of music journalism today. How can one understand the changing ecology of specialist music platforms, independent media outlets, and their struggles, and the shifting role of music journalists? Which editorial formats engage critically and creatively with music today and feel especially effective and valuable? As part of the conversation, participants of the workshop Rewire Reflections will launch their music magazine covering Rewire festival 2026.

Aida Baghernejad is an award winning culture critic based in Berlin. Her work has been published in various national and international media outlets such as DLF Kultur and The Guardian, and focuses on popular culture and its intersections with the political. In 2024, she spent five months in the US as a Thomas Mann Fellow. She usually lives in Berlin, sometimes in London, but mostly on the internet.

Jasper Willems is a music journalist based in Rotterdam. He has written for publications like The Needle Drop, The Line of Best Fit, The Guardian, Drowned In Sound, Beats Per Minute, Bandcamp Daily, and Under The Radar. He wrote the book Rotterdam Goddamn, a personal overview of the the past decade of Rotterdam’s underground.

Laura Snapes is the deputy music editor of The Guardian and a contributor to publications including Pitchfork, The New York Times, and Vogue. She has previously held editorial positions at Pitchfork and NME, and in 2019 published an oral history of the French pop-rock band Phoenix titled Liberté, Egalité, Phoenix, on Rizzoli.